Kentucky House money: three to one, and 43 seats with no Democrat

LOUISVILLE — I've done the House three ways this fall: the twenty seats that matter, the Jefferson County board, the Fayette and Northern Kentucky board. This is the fourth way and it's the simplest. All hundred seats are on the ballot. The Secretary of State's filing list tells you who's on each line, and the Registry of Election Finance tells you what they've raised. Put those two files together and you have the map of the chamber as it actually stands thirteen days out: not who's going to win, but where anybody is even trying.

This is the 30-day pre-General version. The reports cover through October 4 and were due October 13; the 15-day reports, the last before the vote, are due October 28, and I'll run the map once more when they post. Under the calendar Kentucky adopted in 2025, the pre-election reports are the 60-day, the 30-day and the 15-day, and there is nothing in between; an earlier piece of mine used an old name for this one.

The shape of it. Republicans hold 80 of the 100 seats. In November, 48 seats have both a Democrat and a Republican on the ballot. Forty-three have a Republican and no Democrat. Nine have a Democrat and no Republican. That's 52 of 100 seats where the general election is a formality, which is about the same as 2024, when the Democrats left 44 lines blank; the difference this year is that the Republicans are contesting three more Democratic seats than they did then, and the Democrats are contesting one more Republican one. Nothing on the ballot changed between the 60-day reports and the 30-day. The money did.

Read the map for what it says out loud. The whole state is gray because the Republicans filed nearly everywhere and the Democrats didn't, and the contested seats are mostly red because the Republican has raised more in them. The solid blue is Louisville, Lexington, the 7th in Owensboro, the 10th and the 67th. The lavender is the six seats where nobody has a real money edge: the 38th, 58th, 69th, 70th and 99th, where neither side has raised half again what the other has, and the 62nd, where neither candidate has raised $5,000. Now look at the cyan. Thirteen seats were decided by under fifteen points in 2024. In six of them the Republican has raised more than the Democrat, by $34,000 in the 56th and by $204,000 in the 33rd. In two of them, the 37th and the 88th, there is no Democrat on the ballot at all. That is eight of the thirteen closest seats in the state where the Democratic side is either out-raised or absent, and it was true before a single ad ran.

The money. Republican House candidates have reported $5,658,720 raised for the general election through October 4. Democratic candidates have reported $1,854,883. Three to one, same as it was at the 60-day deadline, and the month in between ran at the same rate: $1,260,291 in new Republican money against $425,820 in new Democratic money. That gap isn't mostly about the close races; it's about the 43 seats where a Republican is running against nobody and raising money anyway. Those 43 have raised $1,929,658 between them, up $317,653 in a month with no opponent to spend it on. Steven Rudy in the 1st has raised $189,199 and has no opponent. Jason Petrie in the 16th, $162,094. Joshua Branscum in the 83rd, $150,654. Samara Heavrin in the 18th, $133,708. Michael Meredith in the 19th, $106,384.

Six weeks ago I wrote that this was leadership money, caucus money, money that would move to somebody who does have a race in the last three weeks. It started moving. The 43 unopposed Republicans had spent $99,413 between them at the 60-day deadline. By October 4 they had spent $387,931, and the Registry's expenditure lists say where it went. Petrie's account sent $10,000 to the Republican Party of Kentucky, $10,000 to the House Republican Caucus Campaign Committee, and $3,000 to $3,500 apiece to Susan Witten in the 31st, Stephanie Dietz in the 65th, Tanner Hesterberg in the 95th, Bobby McCool in the 97th and Kim King in the 55th, all on September 22 and October 1. Rudy's sent $10,000 each to the state party and the House caucus, $5,000 to the Senate caucus, and $2,500 to Hesterberg. Michael Pollock in the 51st sent $17,500 to the party and the caucus. John Blanton in the 92nd sent $10,000 to the party and $3,000 each to Witten and to Killian Timoney in the 45th. That's how a supermajority protects itself: the safe seats bank, the close seats draw, and the transfers show up in October.

In the 37 Republican-held seats that do have a Democrat, the Republicans have raised $3,484,446 and the Democrats $691,848, five to one. In the eleven Democratic-held seats that have a Republican, the Democrats have raised $835,501 and the Republicans $244,616, three and a half to one the other way, and that ratio narrowed from four and a half to one in a month. The median contested Democrat has raised $16,966. The median contested Republican, $55,197. Two Democrats in contested seats have still reported nothing at all, in the 60th and 77th, against three Republicans in the same position, in the 10th, 62nd and 76th. Five candidates who filed a 60-day report had no 30-day report on the Registry's site as of October 20, a week past the deadline: Terry Hatton in the 67th, Killian Timoney in the 45th, Suzanne Miles in the 7th, Jason Griffith in the 77th and Michael McVicker in the 3rd. Their numbers below are their 60-day numbers.

The Speaker, David Osborne, has raised $432,758, $87,250 more than a month ago and nearly $170,000 more than anyone else in the chamber, and a Democratic opponent, Stephanie White in Oldham County, who has raised $27,709. I wrote about that one in the Oldham County read. He has also spent $132,935, which is more than all but two Democrats have raised. Two Democrats crack the top ten: Adam Moore in Lexington's 45th, the 172-vote seat, who has raised $194,503, and Lisa Willner in the 35th, who has raised $167,997 against a Republican who has raised $960. One of those is a race. The other is a member who raises like she's in one.

The thirteen. Thirteen House seats were decided by under fifteen points in 2024. Here's what the money looks like in each of them now.

Sorted by the 2024 margin in percentage points: the 67th (30 votes), the 88th (125), the 45th (172), the 31st (340 votes of 23,794), the 38th (249 of 17,237), the 48th, the 57th, the 95th, the 65th, the 37th, the 46th, the 33rd, the 56th. Ten of the thirteen have both parties on the ballot, and in nine of those ten the incumbent's party has raised more. Read it the other way and it's sharper: in the five Republican-held seats on this list that have a Democrat, the 31st, 48th, 65th, 33rd and 56th, the Republican has raised more in all five, and the gaps widened in a month. Witten's lead over Tim Hall in the 31st went from two to one to $204,209 against $60,633, better than three to one; she took $94,595 in new money in the period and Hall took $7,086. Nemes in the 33rd has raised $240,212 against Jennifer Hardin's $36,210, six and a half to one. Dietz in the 65th, $177,308 to Aaron Currin's $26,447. Suhas Kulkarni's $114,520 in the 48th is still the best-funded Democratic challenge in the state, up $35,827, and it's still behind Ken Fleming by $148,702; Fleming has also spent $145,292, which is more than Kulkarni has raised.

The one seat on this list where a challenger has out-raised a sitting member is the 95th, in eastern Kentucky, and the gap there went from $5,922 to $57,297. Johnny Ray Turner, the Democrat who held it by 12.6 in 2024, filed a 30-day report that lists not one dollar of new money; he has raised $40,322, where he was in September. Tanner Hesterberg, the Republican, went from $46,244 to $97,619, with the $3,500 from Petrie's account and the $2,500 from Rudy's inside that number. That's the eastern Kentucky story from last month showing up in a campaign account: the Democratic column there is on paper, and the Republicans know which paper.

The two Democratic-held close seats with a Republican are holding. Rachel Roarx in the 38th has raised $76,300 to Carrie McKeehan's $61,534, and has spent $25,902 to McKeehan's $11,670. Matthew Lehman in the 67th, the 30-vote seat, has raised $91,956 against Terry Hatton's $12,443, and Hatton's number is a late 60-day report with nothing since.

And two of the thirteen have no Democrat at all. The 37th, in south Louisville and Bullitt, where Emily Callaway won by 12.9 and nobody filed against her. And the 88th in Lexington, where the Democrat was disqualified in May and the seat Cherlynn Stevenson lost by 125 votes is now Vanessa Grossl against an independent. I don't have a good explanation for the 37th.

Forty-three Republicans with no opponent have raised $1.9 million, and in September they started writing checks to the five who do. Five Republican incumbents in close seats with a Democrat have raised more than the challenger in all five. That's the map, and it was drawn in the filing window, not the fall.

Where the Democrats are actually ahead. Fifteen of the 48 contested seats, and nine of those are seats they already hold. The six Republican-held seats where the Democrat has out-raised the Republican are worth naming because it's a short list, and it changed by one seat: Laurie Campbell in the 7th, $49,859 to Suzanne Miles's $4,000, in a seat that had no Democrat in 2024; Charlotte Harris in the 70th, $26,566 to $19,032, same story; John Whipple in the 10th, $19,959 against a Republican with no report; Wilanne Stangel in the 69th, $22,921 to $22,600; Iva Markicevic Daley in the 99th, $21,704 to $20,298; and Randy Simpkins in the 62nd, $250 to nothing. Susan Doman in the 27th dropped off the list; Joseph Redmon out-raised her in September, $23,466 to $12,574. All six remaining are seats the Republicans won in 2024 by 24 points or more, or without an opponent. So what the list tells you isn't where the Democrats are going to win. It's where somebody is building something in a district the party gave up on last cycle, the 7th in particular, which is Owensboro, a place the Democratic column has been leaving for a decade.

The read. The 2024 House map was 80 to 20, and the money says the 2026 one is going to look a lot like it: the Republicans have raised three dollars for every Democratic one, they've left nine Democratic seats alone, in every one of the close seats they hold they've raised more than the challenger, and in the last month the safe seats started feeding the close ones, which is the thing a supermajority can do that a minority can't. The Democrats' realistic board is what it was in August: the 31st, the 48th, maybe the 33rd if something breaks, plus two defenses that now have real money on the other side, the 38th and the 95th, and the 95th got harder in a month. The 88th is gone before it started. What's changed since August is on the edges: the Democrats filed in a few more places, some of those filings are raising real money in districts nobody has contested in years, and the Republicans have started spending in Democratic seats they used to skip. That's not a wave in either direction. It's two parties slowly learning that you don't find out a district's number by leaving it blank.

Find your seat. Every House district, who's on the ballot, and what each campaign has raised for the general election through October 4. An asterisk marks a 60-day figure for a candidate whose 30-day report wasn't on the Registry's site as of October 20. "Other" is any independent or write-in who filed. The 2024 column is the margin in the last general election; "unopposed" means the seat had one major-party name on the ballot that year. If you don't know your district, the Secretary of State's lookup at govote.ky.gov will tell you from your address.

Seat	Held	Democrat	Republican	Other	2024
1	R	no Democrat	Steven Jack Rudy $189,199		R +53.4
2	R	no Democrat	Kim Holloway $0		unopposed
3	R	Michael McVicker $3,135*	Randy Bridges $170,666		R +34.0
4	R	no Democrat	D. Wade Williams $55,864		R +50.8
5	R	no Democrat	Mary Beth Imes $11,384		R +31.0
6	R	no Democrat	Chris Freeland $65,508		R +53.7
7	R	Laurie C. Campbell $49,859	Suzanne Miles $4,000*		unopposed
8	R	no Democrat	Walker Wood Thomas $0		unopposed
9	R	no Democrat	Myron B. Dossett $14,067		R +34.8
10	R	John B. Whipple $19,959	Josh Calloway $0		R +38.0
11	R	Janelle Rowena Glass $3,892	J. T. Payne $80,741		unopposed
12	R	no Democrat	Jim Gooch Jr. $17,436		R +59.7
13	R	Rhondalyn Randolph $12,628	D. J. Johnson $85,724		unopposed
14	R	Donna Haynes $5,841	Wes Pate $21,691		R +61.3
15	R	Chris Waddell $4,089	Rebecca Raymer $77,991		unopposed
16	R	no Democrat	Jason Petrie $162,094		unopposed
17	R	no Democrat	Robert B. Duvall $67,284		unopposed
18	R	no Democrat	Samara Heavrin $133,708		unopposed
19	R	no Democrat	Michael Lee Meredith $106,384		unopposed
20	R	no Democrat	Kevin Jackson $60,112		unopposed
21	R	no Democrat	Amy Neighbors $53,357		R +64.9
22	R	no Democrat	Shawn McPherson $12,610		unopposed
23	R	no Democrat	Steve Riley $25,579		unopposed
24	R	Johnny Pennington $1,417	Ryan Dale Bivens $40,158		R +63.2
25	R	Cherlyn Evette Smith $567	Steve Bratcher $89,885		R +30.8
26	R	no Democrat	Peyton Griffee $28,094		unopposed
27	R	Susan C. Doman $12,574	Joseph Redmon $23,466		R +25.8
28	R	Almaria Baker $12,174	Jared A. Bauman $64,042		R +17.3
29	R	Cassie Blausey $37,176	Chris Lewis $83,730		R +15.1
30	D	Mitra Subedi $0	no Republican		unopposed
31	R	Tim Hall $60,633	Susan Tyler Witten $204,209		R +1.4
32	D	Tina Bojanowski $31,418	no Republican		unopposed
33	R	Jennifer Hardin $36,210	Jason Michael Nemes $240,212		R +13.7
34	D	Sarah Stalker $34,593	Victoria Ligon $1,790		unopposed
35	D	Lisa Willner $167,997	Bret Shultz $960		unopposed
36	R	William Zorn $11,024	John F. Hodgson $94,122		R +15.7
37	R	no Democrat	Emily Myers Callaway $22,598		R +12.9
38	D	Rachel Roarx $76,300	Carrie Sanders McKeehan $61,534		D +1.4
39	R	Ryan Stanford $8,704	Matt Lockett $128,648		R +19.1
40	D	Nima Kulkarni $70,077	no Republican		unopposed
41	D	Mary Lou Marzian $43,291	no Republican		D +47.9
42	D	Joshua Watkins $16,048	no Republican		unopposed
43	D	Robert LeVertis Bell $8,802	no Republican	Lisa Harris (write-in)	unopposed
44	D	Kenya Wade $0	no Republican		unopposed
45	D	Adam Moore $194,503	Killian Timoney $12,943*		D +0.7
46	D	Al Gentry $81,401	Brad Woolridge $1,956		D +13.2
47	R	no Democrat	Felicia Rabourn $9,461		R +36.5
48	R	Suhas Kulkarni $114,520	Ken Fleming $263,221		R +7.5
49	R	no Democrat	Thomas Huff $21,753		unopposed
50	R	J. D. Netherton $1,644	Candy Massaroni $35,910		unopposed
51	R	no Democrat	Michael Pollock $69,542		unopposed
52	R	no Democrat	Kevin G. Jones $0		unopposed
53	R	no Democrat	James Allen Tipton $18,162		unopposed
54	R	no Democrat	Daniel B. Elliott $45,884		unopposed
55	R	Katrina A. Sexton $8,272	Kim King $86,937		R +46.9
56	R	David Graves $7,226	Daniel A. Fister $41,461		R +14.9
57	D	Erika Hancock $40,162	no Republican		D +10.8
58	R	Andrew Thomas Monarch $43,804	Jennifer Henson Decker $48,861		unopposed
59	R	Stephanie White $27,709	David W. Osborne $432,758		unopposed
60	R	Tracey Reid $0	Marianne Proctor $69,082		R +33.0
61	R	no Democrat	Savannah Maddox $25,073		unopposed
62	R	Randy Jackson Simpkins $250	Tony Hampton $0		R +32.8
63	R	no Democrat	Cole Cuzick $4,624		unopposed
64	R	William Nick Whalen $6,176	Kimberly Poore Moser $77,802		R +32.2
65	R	Aaron John Currin $26,447	Stephanie A. Dietz $177,308		R +12.6
66	R	Jason Ellis $3,084	T. J. Roberts $26,730		R +40.9
67	D	Matthew Lehman $91,956	Terry Hatton $12,443*		D +0.2
68	R	Amy Amin $22,418	Mike Clines $126,836		R +31.8
69	R	Wilanne Stangel $22,921	Steven Doan $22,600		R +24.5
70	R	Charlotte Harris $26,566	Mike Fisher $19,032		unopposed
71	R	no Democrat	Josh Bray $83,368		R +55.4
72	R	no Democrat	Matthew R. Koch $69,211		unopposed
73	R	Chelsea Kirk $26,621	Daniel Konstantopoulos $62,871		R +20.4
74	R	no Democrat	David F. Charles $0		unopposed
75	D	Lindsey Burke $38,276	Jeff Forsyth $1,000	Geoffrey Young (Ind.) $12,000	unopposed
76	D	Anne Gay Donworth $15,797	Avram Phoenix Hicks $0		unopposed
77	D	George A. Brown Jr. $0	Jason Griffith $5,534*		D +45.0
78	R	no Democrat	Mark Hart $12,920		unopposed
79	D	Chad R. Aull $117,737	no Republican		unopposed
80	R	Mary Russell $1,124	David Meade $235,695		unopposed
81	R	Anthony Looney $12,986	Deanna Frazier Gordon $43,178		unopposed
82	R	no Democrat	Nick Wilson $10,127		unopposed
83	R	no Democrat	Joshua Branscum $150,654		unopposed
84	R	no Democrat	Chris Fugate $0		R +30.1
85	R	no Democrat	R. Shane Baker $30,928		unopposed
86	R	no Democrat	Tom O'Dell Smith $44,217		unopposed
87	R	no Democrat	Adam Bowling $39,554		unopposed
88	R	no Democrat	Vanessa Grossl $56,764	L. Scott Miller (Ind.) $31,075	R +0.5
89	R	no Democrat	Timmy Truett $10,188		unopposed
90	R	no Democrat	Derek Lewis $43,815		unopposed
91	R	David Johnson $10,339	Darrell Billings $47,262		unopposed
92	R	no Democrat	John Blanton $51,724		unopposed
93	D	Adrielle Camuel $94,356	Hannah Beth Rivera $48,836		unopposed
94	R	no Democrat	Mitchum Addison Whitaker $26,919		unopposed
95	D	Johnny Ray Turner $40,322	Tanner Hesterberg $97,619		D +12.6
96	R	Pamela Lewis $10,019	Patrick Flannery $125,268		unopposed
97	R	Rebekah D. Skaggs $18,135	Bobby W. McCool $112,050		unopposed
98	R	no Democrat	Aaron Thompson $39,112		R +43.8
99	R	Iva Markicevic Daley $21,704	Richard Lee White $20,298		unopposed
100	R	no Democrat	Scott Sharp $40,383		unopposed

What I'm watching: the 15-day reports, due October 28, in the 31st, the 48th and the 95th, and whether more of the $1.9 million raised by unopposed Republicans goes where Petrie's and Rudy's went.

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Disclosure: I work in Kentucky Democratic politics. I'm not paid by, and don't advise, any candidate named above. I read this chamber the same way whether or not it's good news for my side; that's the job. Ballot lines are the Secretary of State's 2026 general election filing list. Money figures are the Kentucky Registry of Election Finance's public search, Office Search for State Representative, 11/3/2026 General, pulled October 20, 2026: cumulative general-election receipts and disbursements through the 30-day pre-General reports (period ended October 4, due October 13), with the five late filers named above carried at their 60-day figures. Transfers are from the individual expenditure lists on the same site. 2024 margins are from certified returns.